Newtown shootings: Roundup of most recent coverage

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Some of the police officers who responded to the elementary school shooting in Newtown are so traumatized they haven't been working, but they have to use sick time and could soon be at risk of going without a paycheck, a union official said Wednesday.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- Newtown observed Christmas amid snow-covered teddy bears, stockings, flowers and candles left in memorial to the 20 children and six educators gunned down at an elementary school just 11 days before the holiday.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- More messages of hope and solidarity poured into Newtown on Monday as the town prepared to observe Christmas Eve 10 days after the elementary school massacre that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six teachers and administrators. Two dozen children and six adults arrived at town hall in the morning to deliver hundreds of handmade cards and snowflakes collected as they toured the state in a charter bus.

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The tragedy in Newtown grabbed hold of the nation as news spread that 20 children were among those gunned down Dec. 14.

In return, people across the country want to give the Sandy Hook children something to hold onto, and thousands upon thousands of Teddy bears have be sent to Newtown.

The sentiment is appreciated, locals say, but they don't need any more bears or other stuffed animals, as they don't know what to do with the abundance they already have. Excess bears and various other stuffed creatures were handed out to attendees of Friday night's candlelight vigil. More than 1,000 people showed up for the vigil, but even more bears were there, including 7,000 sent from Arkansas alone.

MIAMI (AP) -- The nation's largest gun-rights lobby called Friday for the placement of an armed police officer in every school, but parents and educators questioned how safe such a move would keep kids, whether it would be economically feasible and how it would alter student life. Their reactions ranged from supportive to disgusted.

CHICAGO (AP) -- It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible -- partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.

Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.

But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

President Obama issued a video response to the We the People petitions submitted to the White House after the Newtown shootings. Petitions relating to gun violence have gained more than 400,000 signatures in the past week.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One week after the mass shootings that killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school -- 20 of them children -- the nation's largest gun-rights lobby is returning to the spotlight as Congress prepares to consider tighter restrictions on firearms in the new year.

The 4.3 million-member National Rifle Association largely disappeared from public debate after the shootings in Newtown, Conn., choosing atypical silence as a strategy as the nation sought answers after the rampage. The NRA took down its Facebook page and kept silent on Twitter.

Unlike its actions in the wake of other mass shootings, the group did not put out a statement of condolence for the victims while simultaneously defending the rights of gun owners.

That strategy, however, is set to change, starting with a news conference Friday.

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The road ahead for family, loved ones and the growing community that is Newtown will be one of pain, loss and life in a place that is a national symbol of unimaginable pain. The exit sign on the interstate will continue to read "Newtown" and "Sandy Hook," but for outsiders driving past, the words will forever be a dagger into a nation's tender heart.

HARROLD, Texas (AP) -- In this tiny Texas town, children and their parents don't give much thought to safety at the community's lone school -- mostly because some of the teachers are carrying concealed weapons.

In remote Harrold, the nearest sheriff's office is 30 minutes away, and people tend to know -- and trust -- one another. So the school board voted to let teachers bring guns to school.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) - A season that should be a time of joy has been marked by heart-wrenching loss in Newtown, as more victims from the massacre of 20 children and six adults are laid to rest.

At least nine funerals and wakes were held Wednesday for those who died when gunman Adam Lanza, armed with a military-style assault rifle, broke into Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday and opened fire. Lanza killed his mother at her home before the attack and committed suicide at the school as police closed in.

On Thursday, five funerals and six wakes were planned, and more tributes were scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

STRATFORD, Conn. -- Victoria Soto, hailed as the hero teacher whose decisive action saved numerous children's lives, was so popular that more than 200 mourners at her funeral on Wednesday could not get inside the Lordship Community Church.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Spurred by a horrific elementary school shooting, President Barack Obama tasked his administration Wednesday with creating concrete proposals to reduce the gun violence that has plagued the country.

"This time, the words need to lead to action," said Obama, who set a January deadline for the recommendations. He tasked Vice President Joe Biden with leading the effort and vowed to push for implementation of the policy proposals without delay.

The company that makes one of the weapons said to have been used to kill elementary school children in Connecticut is being put up for sale by its owner, which called Friday's tragedy a "watershed event" in the debate over gun control.

Meanwhile, Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. said in a statement that it suspended the sale of modern sporting rifles in all of its stores. The company also removed all guns from sale and display at its store closest to Newtown.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- With security stepped up and families still on edge in Newtown, students began returning to school Tuesday for the first time since last week's massacre, bringing a return of familiar routines -- at least, for some -- to a grief-stricken town as it buries 20 of its children.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cerberus is planning to sell its stake in Freedom Group, maker of the Bushmaster rifle, following the school shootings in Newtown, Conn.

The private equity firm said that the shootings were a watershed event in the national debate on gun control. While it said that it is not its role to take positions or attempt to shape or influence the gun control debate, Cerberus said it can take action by selling its stake in Freedom Group.

The Huffington Post is reporting that some of the nation's largest teachers' retirement systems -- including that in New York -- hold tens of millions of dollars worth of stock in two publicly traded gun manufacturers.

DUNBLANE, Scotland (AP) -- If there's anywhere that understands the pain of Newtown, it's Dunblane, the town whose grief became a catalyst for changes to Britain's gun laws.

In March 1996, a 43-year-old man named Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school in this central Scotland town of 8,000 people and shot to death 16 kindergarten-age children and their teacher with four legally held handguns. In the weeks that followed, people in the town formed the Snowdrop campaign -- named for the first flower of spring -- to press for a ban on handguns. Within weeks, it had collected 750,000 signatures. By the next year, the ban had become law.

It is a familiar pattern around the world -- from Britain to Australia, grief at mass shootings has been followed by swift political action to tighten gun laws.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- Gene Rosen had just finished feeding his cats and was heading from his home near Sandy Hook Elementary school to a diner Friday morning when he saw six small children sitting in a neat semicircle at the end of his driveway.

A school bus driver was standing over them, telling them things would be all right. It was about 9:30 a.m., and the children, he discovered, had just run from the school to escape a gunman.

"We can't go back to school," one little boy told Rosen. "Our teacher is dead. Mrs. Soto; we don't have a teacher."

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A mediator who worked with Adam Lanza's parents during their divorce in 2009 said Lanza's mother said she didn't like to leave him alone and that his parents went out of their way to accommodate him.

And there he lay in his casket: in a jersey adorned with his favorite football player's number: 80. Peaceful and silent.

Grief-stricken friends and relatives packed the funeral for Jack Pinto here Monday, while others attended the funeral of Jack's classmate, Noah Pozner, in Fairfield. They were the first of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims to be laid to rest.

In the wake of a tragic school shooting in Connecticut, President Barack Obama and others have called for new gun-control legislation. The exact proposals are not yet known, but supporters will likely draw upon recent unsuccessful efforts.

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- When the parents of Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza divorced, the settlement left his mother with a comfortable income and the comfort of knowing that the boy in her care would have his education paid for and his medical insurance covered.

If there was bitterness and anger between Nancy and Peter Lanza, it is not described in court papers. And there was no mention of any lingering mental health or medical issues for the then-teenage boy, nothing that could even hint at the horror he would unleash three years later.

DANBURY, Conn. (AP) -- The man identified as the gunman who killed 26 children and adults in an elementary school took college classes when he was only 16, a spokesman for Western Connecticut State University said Monday.

Paul Steinmetz, spokesman for the Danbury school, confirmed that Adam Lanza earned a 3.26 grade point average while a student there. He dropped out of a German language class and withdrew from a computer science class, but earned an A in a computer class, A-minus in American history and B in macroeconomics.

Once again, every school entrance, auditorium side door and cafeteria back alley in America will be scrutinized through a lens of senseless bloodshed.

Educators and school security experts said Sunday that all options are on the table: from more security guards and police presence on a permanent basis, to increased vigilance about lockdowns and visitors.

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Schools Superintendent Paul Padalino issued a statement Sunday anticipating the opening of schools today in the wake of the massacre of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn., on Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is vowing to use "whatever power this office holds" to safeguard the nation's children, raising the prospect that he will pursue policy changes to stem gun violence in the wake of an elementary school massacre.

"Because what choice do we have?" a somber Obama said at a Sunday evening vigil in the grieving community of Newtown, Conn. "We can't accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard?"

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- A grieving Connecticut town braced itself Monday to bury the first two of the 20 small victims of an elementary school gunman and debated when classes could resume -- and where, given the carnage in the building and the children's associations with it.

Nancy Lanza was the one who, if she heard you were short on cash, regularly offered to pick up the tab at My Place.

Two or three nights a week, Lanza -- the mother of the gunman in Connecticut's horrific school massacre -- came in for carryout salads, but stayed for Chardonnay and good humor. The divorced mother of two -- still smooth-skinned and ash blonde at 52 -- clearly didn't have to work, but was always glad to share talk of her beloved Red Sox, gardening and a growing enthusiasm for target shooting.

But while Lanza spoke proudly about her sons and brought them in for breakfast when they were younger, friends say she held one card very close: home life, especially its trials and setbacks, was off limits.

The Connecticut official who performed autopsies on seven victims of the Newtown shooting said Sunday that a rifle used by the killer has little application in hunting.

State Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver was blunt in his assessment of the lethality of the Bushmaster semi-automatic weapon used by the killer along with two handguns.

"It is said that the most lethal thing on the battlefield is a Marine with one of these rifles and momma Marine Corps didn't raise no fools," he said Sunday. "I don't know of many people who hunt with (these weapons) because the bullets are so fast that they break up and spray the (targets) with bits of lead."

NEWTOWN, Conn. - State police late Sunday afternoon confirmed what has been widely known since Friday, naming Adam Lanza as the gunman in the Sandy Hook Elementary School slayings and his mother, Nancy Lanza, as another victim.

According to Lt. J. Paul Vance, the chief state medical examiner found Nancy Lanza's cause of death to be multiple gunshot wounds in a homicide in her 36 Yogananda St. home, while her son, who also lived in the home, died of a gunshot wound in a suicide. Adam Lanza was found dead in the school after police arrived Friday.

An assault rifle, which Vance labeled a Bushmaster AR-15, was the firearm most used during Friday¹s shooting. Adam Lanza also had a Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9-mm handgun, along with additional ammunition and multiple magazines for each gun that could hold hundreds of bullets, Vance said.

Residents and visitors in this sorrow-stricken community searched for those Sunday morning. They searched for them below fog-covered spires and in the aisles between varnished wooden pews. They searched for the face of God at the altar, or perhaps the face of anyone to corroborate a heavy grief.

Few words were spoken. What was found was unclear. But the call to be there was heard.

NEWTOWN, Conn. - Newtown Youth & Family Services is collecting donations for people directly affected by Friday's elementary school shooting,

Donations can be sent via "Caroline's Gift," a fund set up in the 1990s by a local family in memory of their daughter. The Caroline's Gift fund offers financial support to families who are dealing with a child's terminal or catastrophic illness.

"Any donations made to Newtown Youth & Family Services will be donated directly to those affected by the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting," a message on the organizations website says.

Newtown Youth and Family Services is located at 15 Berkshire Road, Sandy Hook, CT 06482. For more details on how to donate, call (203) 426-8103.

Two days after one of the nation's worst mass killings at a school, St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown, Conn. was evacuated Sunday during its noon mass after a man called the church and told a priest "I'm coming to kill, I'm coming to kill.''

The New York Times reported that Msgr. Robert Weiss, who spoke to a reporter from Ora.TV, which was live-streaming from the church, said that the church phone rang and a man on the line began issuing threats.

Weiss said the parishioner who answered the phone said to him, "you'd better listen to this phone conversation," and handed him the phone. "He started talking about 'I'm coming to kill, I'm coming to kill,'" the priest said.

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Two days after a devastating elementary school shooting that killed 20 first-graders, mourning in this New England town played out at Sunday church services, makeshift memorials and vigils. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama arrived in Connecticut to meet with families and police said they found hundreds of unused bullets on the suspected perpetrator.

The mourning was disrupted momentarily by more chaos when St. Rose of Lima's church was evacuated after someone called the church saying "I'm coming to kill, I'm coming to kill" and the church was evacuated and closed for the rest of the day.

Several funerals were scheduled and Obama met with families privately and planned to speak at an evening vigil. In another sign of forward movement, the school district announced the surviving children would return to school in a temporary building.

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The 20 children who were shot to death in an elementary school on Friday morning were all first-graders who had only reached their sixth or seventh birthdays, officials announced Saturday afternoon as investigators tried to figure out what led a bright but painfully awkward 20-year-old to commit the killings.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- Inside the four-bedroom colonial set on a small rise, Nancy Lanza was already dead. But it was early yet, and it would be hours before her body was found -- time enough for her son to unleash a slaughter.

For now, though, all seemed idyllic in this 300-year-old town under crystalline skies.

Adam Lanza, 20 years old, fascinated by computers and recalled by former classmates as painfully awkward, left the house in his mother's car and drove past fine old churches and towering trees. It was the holiday season, and lawns were decorated with lights and electric reindeer. It was just five miles from home to Sandy Hook Elementary, where hallways and classrooms rang with talk of Hannukah and Christmas.

Inside the music room, a group of fourth graders were watching the movie "The Nutcracker."

Two days ago, they were little boys and girls. They were beautiful children. They laughed. They ran around and screamed because that's what kids that age do, and what they love.

Two days ago they were people we all knew, teachers, educators. People who our children knew. People who smiled -- and sometimes yelled -- as our children learned and played, and played pranks on each other.

A day after the massacre in Newtown, U.S. Rep. John Larson put his feelings on updating gun control laws succinctly.

"To do nothing in the face of continuous assaults on our children is to be complicit in those assaults. ... Politics be damned," the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement Saturday.

Gun control is a topic that has gotten almost no traction during President Barack Obama's first term, although he opened the door to a discussion Friday saying it was time to "take meaningful action, regardless of the politics."

Connecticut gets high marks from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - only one of four states in that category - with California the lone state with the highest rating by the anti-gun group.

In 1994, President Clinton signed a law barring the manufacture of certain semi-automatic rifles. The so-called assault-weapons ban expired in 2004, however, and was not renewed.

Below is a list of the 12 bills that would have reinstated the federal assault-weapons ban. Most of the sponsors and cosponsors are Democrats. A number of the high-profile supporters ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in either 2004 or 2008, but Democratic leaders in Congress mostly kept their distance from the proposals.

The bills begin with a flurry of activity in 2003 just before the ban was due to expire and again in 2004 just after it expired. When they became stuck in committee, sponsors tried some tricky legislative maneuvers to put them up for a vote by the entire chamber, but those failed. Each later attempt had fewer and fewer cosponsors.

No bill to reinstate the assault-weapons ban has been filed since 2008.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The biggest outstanding question connected to the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., is also the hardest to answer: Why?

Scant details have emerged about the 20-year-old man who gunned down 26 people -- most of them children -- at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the sleepy New England town Friday morning. After carrying out the deadly rampage, Adam Lanza shot and killed himself.

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- No incidents or activities at Nancy Jean Lanza's three-acre home caused alarm or brought undue attention to the divorced mother of two sons.

Then on Friday, her 20-year-old son, Adam, fatally shot Lanza in her 36 Yogalanda St. residence in Newtown and proceeded to kill 20 adults and six children at Sandy Hook Elementary School before killing himself, police say.

There are conflicting reports as to whether Lanza, 52, was a kindergarten teacher or teacher's aide at the school.

"They seemed very normal. I knew the mom; she was a nice person," said a Yogalanda Street neighbor who did not want her name published. "I don't know for sure if the sons lived there. Once they go to high school, you don't see them waiting for the bus anymore. I remember (Adam) as a little kid. I don't know if I'd recognize him anymore."

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) -- A worker who turned on the intercom, alerting others in the building that something was very wrong. A custodian who risked his life by running through the halls warning of danger. A clerk who led 18 children on their hands and knees to safety, then gave them paper and crayons to keep them calm and quiet.

Out of the ruins of families that lost a precious child, sister or mother, out of a tight-knit town roiling with grief, glows one bright spot: the stories of staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School who may have prevented further carnage through selfless actions and smart snap judgments.

District Superintendent Janet Robinson noted "incredible acts of heroism" that "ultimately saved so many lives."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Making a sadly familiar journey, President Barack Obama will attend an evening vigil in Newtown, Conn., to mourn with a town still seeking to comprehend the unimaginable massacre of its children and teachers.

His visit Sunday to this southeastern Connecticut community comes two days after a man opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School killing 26 people, including 20 boys and girls just 6 or 7 years old.

In 1994, President Clinton signed a law barring the manufacture of certain semi-automatic rifles. The so-called assault-weapons ban expired in 2004, however, and was not renewed.

Below is a list of the 12 bills that would have reinstated the federal assault-weapons ban. Most of the sponsors and cosponsors are Democrats. A number of the high-profile supporters ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in either 2004 or 2008, but Democratic leaders in Congress mostly kept their distance from the proposals.

The bills begin with a flurry of activity in 2003 just before the ban was due to expire and again in 2004 just after it expired. When they became stuck in committee, sponsors tried some tricky legislative maneuvers to put them up for a vote by the entire chamber, but those failed. Each later attempt had fewer and fewer cosponsors.

No bill to reinstate the assault-weapons ban has been filed since 2008.